The future of museums: Is your museum ready?

Over the last year, the whole world has experienced a shift to a more unstable economic situation. Inflation rates and gas prices have been on the rise, affecting everyone’s day-to-day lives. Amplifying price sensitivity among consumers, this economically challenging time had quite a considerable impact on Attractions worldwide, making the future of leisure and culture unstable.

However, while navigating many difficulties, most still wonder what the future looks like for museums and what are the solutions to the current problems that museums operators are facing.

1. Becoming more interactive

The main goal of museums is to create awareness in their field by educating the public through their exhibitions and experiences, and what better way to do so than by making visitors become part of the experience.

This can be done primarily by integrating technologies that will allow more engaging and interactive museum experiences, encouraging some sort of action from the visitor, rather than just passive observation. With the implementation of digital technologies across the whole customer journey. The visitors’ experience does not start when they enter the museum, it starts at home. 

Forward-thinking and revolutionary technologies, such as gamification, virtual reality, augmented reality, augmented information, wearable devices, or the integration of QR codes just to name a few, are becoming more and more popular for museums to create memorable in-venue experiences.

There are many ways in which museums can improve their guest experience with their own apps. Mobile technologies have been on the rise in the past years and will continue to have an essential role in bringing better experiences before, during and after the visit.

It all comes down to matching online and offline efforts. Delivering truly immersive experiences will ultimately result in optimising conversions, increasing visits volume, and enhancing visitor loyalty.

2. Offering more personalised experiences

The same story doesn’t resonate with everyone. A university student, a cultural enthusiast or a child perceives the same experience differently. Therefore, ‘one-size-fits-all’ approach is no longer effective in order to communicate value to visitors and build long-lasting relationships. 

Customer-centricity is gaining more and more relevance, and becoming a huge differentiating factor within the Experience Economy. 

In the era of infinite choice that we live in, museums will have to make an effort to make their experiences more relevant than ever, and target the right audience with the right message, at the right time. Personalisation takes a deep understanding of your visitors and what they value. For instance, when targeting cultural enthusiasts with an offer for annual passes, while offering the university students special discounted days. 

This means that museums will have to reflect on who their audience is, and target it smartly. However, that can only be done by gathering first-hand customer data and having automation and data-driven systems in place.

3. Focussing on providing a seamless online booking experience

Let's face it. Although museums are driven by the love of art and culture, they are funded by money and can't run without it. Especially now, given the economically-difficult times we are living in.

A recent study done by Arival shows what factors influence travellers to choose one experience over another. According to the results, the ability to book online, along with a detailed description of the activity are extremely important for visitors. The visitors’ journey begins at home and proving a seamless online booking experience is key for maximising revenue. 

The commercialisation of your museum can go beyond that. Think about push notifications reminding your visitors to visit the gift shop when they are close to exiting your experience, messages offering them a discount for the restaurant when it's close to lunch time, or related products to an exhibition that you know they are highly interested in.

The best part is that for these sales conducted through online check outs, your museum's gates don't even have to be open. For example, at Convious, we help our partners incentivize donations directly through their check out, targeted to cultural supporters and enthusiasts, and this way, help them generate new revenue opportunities even when they are closed.

Imagine the benefits you can reap in terms of revenue when you use a seamless booking experience along with data-driven personalization, and make every stage of their journey your next selling point.

4. Better visitor spread 

Anything that would make the experience inside a museum even better?

Probably having the museum for your own and being truly able to take the perfect instagram worthy picture of your favourite exhibit.

Crowd Management is yet another technology that will become essential for museums when wanting to provide the best in-venue experience. Apart from providing a safer experience for visitors in case of a health outbreak, it can also add value to your offering.

There are many ways in which crowd management can be implemented such as in-advance reservations, time-slots, dynamic pricing and in-venue heat-mapping. No matter which ones you choose, they will all result in a better and safer experience for your visitors, along with that feeling of exclusivity as if they have all the exhibits to their own. And who wouldn’t want that?

By determining your expected visitor numbers based on historical data and numerous factors that are constantly changing (weather, demand, current sales...), you can offer smart prices that help spread visitor volume accordingly, and have a clear overview that can help you plan in advance for the day.

Convious can easily solve it for you. We have been helping our partners reduce the risk of crowds in their venue and improve their visitor-spread through our disruptive Crowd Control technology. 

Does your museum tick all the boxes? Are you ready to offer the best visitor experience?

If you have any questions or would like to know more about the Convious’ Solution for Museums, our experts would be happy to have a talk!